StrangerThings wrote:Why bring in other developers when you've got a good working relationship with Cordish? Not to mention, It would be a slap in the face to essentially seek out other developers when only a few like Cordish were willing to buy in to the original downtown revitalization idea. "Hey Cordish, invest millions with us to help turn around downtown so we can ultimately bring in competition to you guys."

It was one deal. The City doesn't owe Cordish exclusivity. Any developer is always welcomed by the City to propose, or bid, on a development anywhere in the City. Any city government that only worked with one developer would be subject to accusations of favoritism. Relying on primarily one developer can lead to stagnation. This had severe ramifications in the past with Stan Durwood in the South Loop, and Tower Properties in the North Loop.

Other developers doing projects might produce better developments, and variety. One might argue that MAC Properties, DST, Sunflower Development, Shirley Helzberg, and Brad Nicholson, have created as much change in Kansas City by doing a variety of smaller projects, which en masse are as important as what Cordish has done.

Keep in mind that Cordish could sell out at any point, just like Highwoods sold most of the Plaza. Corporations aren't necessarily loyal to cities. Even ones that were founded in the city can leave it.

Last edited by FangKC on Sat Mar 11, 2017 1:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I sense someone is closely affiliated with Cordish and desires unrealistic exclusivity. Should be obvious that the more big ticket hirise developers the merrier. The City and downtown orgs need to get the word out to big ticket national hirise developers - downtown living demand is high, KC is pulling off over $2/sqft and free streetcar is huge benefit to tie many downtown services together.

I think a few people keep missing a key word. The city specifically "seeking" out other developers in my personal opionion would be a bad move. Obviously, if other developers want to come along and spend money by all means the city should get behind it, if it makes sense.

Cordish has been a family owned business for over 100 years and have never been in the business of developing and than selling. I can't say it's not a possibility over the next 100 years, but they've been owner/operators for the entire history of the company.

The point about other smaller developments being just as important as the larger ones is spot on. I never intended to imply otherwise.

There's nothing wrong with a period of exclusivity that comes with being able to build on city land financially, logistically, etc, but it should have an end date. Like they have to meet certain benchmarks along the planning process in a set timeframe.

Think of the idea of having a five year contract to develop city parcels to city specs and it comes with a need to do any city project wanted.This contract should start with a set of stringent requirements and an open bid process of course.

Go with the contract type with renewal periods where the terms can be modified if wished and the contract ended or continued as is.

A private project the land owner can do whatever they want with identifying developers and having exclusives.

I completely agree with time constraints and I think it should even apply to commercial and residential property owned privately. That's shaky ground legally, but would be nice to help avoid someone buying property with the promise to renovate or build new and end up just sitting on it for years while waiting to sell.

I can go out into the country, buy a piece of land and do nothing on it if I want. The same applies for a property downtown.

There's ways to encourage not doing nothing like fees for certain uses, maintenance standards and such but that's not requiring someone to build. I open a lot of tickets for tall grass and weed removal. It's an easy place to build up the fines for a truly deadbeat landowner.

But you can see how the methods aren't forcing someone to do something but by ideally making it expensive not to do something.

This is why I like the idea of multipliers on property taxes in certain zoning types, like UR districts where the goal is new construction or renovations.

The land and building value would remain the same, this would be a special assessment on the city property taxes.

Pick a random parcel downtown. Each parcel has a value which is changed by it's position relative to another parcel but is also largely based on the land use. This would be an assessment that applies as if this parcel would assess by the county for much more. ex if you are a parking lot surrounded by 5 story buildings you would special assess close to as if you're a five story building.

Each building has a multiplier based on distance and position. A building on the same block would be 0.9, on a corner across would be 0.95 and touching or across the street 1.0, whatever makes the most sense. Farther away the multipliers become 0.8, 0.6, 0.5, 0.3 and so on. These numbers would be before any abatements, it would be the true assessed value and city building value would apply to the math. The idea is the closest buildings have the most impact so they affect the assessment the most.

You feed these property tax values into a formula, subtract your city tax amount so this is on top of that number and pop out the special assessment. Could have something where you immediately reduce the number to zero if it's within 5 or 10% of your actual property cost.

This discourages teardowns. You can't get out of this tax by removing the building. it encourages building early, not waiting to be last, because your taxes creep up as other projects finish.

It encourages your project being the same size, quality and cost or better when you do build or renovate. You want a building that brings you to a zero multiplier or to be the building setting the rate for the area.

It discourages doing nothing where everyone around you has done something while not penalizing an owner surrounded by nothing.

What does this allow? It allows stopping doing tax abatements for schools, library and such and move over to reducing special assessments in a bigger manner.

Take this special assessment and let the owner use it as a tax credit against the cost of renovation work, new building construction, tenant refinishes, historic building maintenance work, small improvements like adding bike racks or sidewalk seating and the like. Allow pooling. If you own two parcels combin the two to pay for a building renovation. Allow applying future credits for 3-5 years, where the owner picks the start and end dates. A smaller project surrounded by big ones could pay zero special assessment for several years but after that it would pay a lot. A bigger project might pay some or no special assessment for decades because it's big enough not to.

The idea is to minimize taxes through density and building before the tax can hit you, or hit as hard. It encourages large landowners to do work on any property to minimize their total downtown taxes. Commerce couldn't sit on a bunch of valuable parking lots and expect to pay almost nothing on them without doing major work on another property.

flyingember wrote:This is why I like the idea of multipliers on property taxes in certain zoning types, like UR districts where the goal is new construction or renovations.

The land and building value would remain the same, this would be a special assessment on the city property taxes.

Pick a random parcel downtown. Each parcel has a value which is changed by it's position relative to another parcel but is also largely based on the land use. This would be an assessment that applies as if this parcel would assess by the county for much more. ex if you are a parking lot surrounded by 5 story buildings you would special assess close to as if you're a five story building.

Each building has a multiplier based on distance and position. A building on the same block would be 0.9, on a corner across would be 0.95 and touching or across the street 1.0, whatever makes the most sense. Farther away the multipliers become 0.8, 0.6, 0.5, 0.3 and so on. These numbers would be before any abatements, it would be the true assessed value and city building value would apply to the math. The idea is the closest buildings have the most impact so they affect the assessment the most.

You feed these property tax values into a formula, subtract your city tax amount so this is on top of that number and pop out the special assessment. Could have something where you immediately reduce the number to zero if it's within 5 or 10% of your actual property cost.

This discourages teardowns. You can't get out of this tax by removing the building. it encourages building early, not waiting to be last, because your taxes creep up as other projects finish.

It encourages your project being the same size, quality and cost or better when you do build or renovate. You want a building that brings you to a zero multiplier or to be the building setting the rate for the area.

What does this allow? It allows stopping doing tax abatements for schools, library and such and move over to reducing special assessments in a bigger manner.

Take this special assessment and let the owner use it as a tax credit against the cost of renovation work, new building construction, tenant refinishes, historic building maintenance work, small improvements like adding bike racks or sidewalk seating and the like. Allow pooling. If you own two parcels combin the two to pay for a building renovation. Allow applying future credits for 3-5 years, where the owner picks the start and end dates. A smaller project surrounded by big ones could pay zero special assessment for several years but after that it would pay a lot. A bigger project might pay some or no special assessment for decades because it's big enough not to.

The idea is to minimize taxes through density and building before the tax can hit you, or hit as hard. It encourages large landowners to do work on any property to minimize their total downtown taxes. Commerce couldn't sit on a bunch of valuable parking lots and expect to pay almost nothing on them without doing major work on another property.

This is why I believe in the city dealing with a company like Cordish even if they might not come in the cheapest on a bid. As covered before, this company is sitting on nothing, rather is building as I am sure the city agrees with. On time, good quality, good looking buildings. Furthermore, obviously at this time in their construction schedule they are already looking to the future. This is a company the city should trust to stand by and deliver on their commitments. I for one am glad we have gone into a development project with a company that has Earned my cities trust. Other developers, bring 'em on, but as an old Dutchman once said "Trust but Verify"!

I think that's on the back burner until new construction demand slows. I see that building remaining as an office building and not becoming residential. As long as the city is ok with that and I'm sure they will be. Not to mention, the noise from the Attached theatre could be a challenge to design around. The first 5 or 6 floors on the east side have zero views.